Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

Soldier gives birth in Afghanistan. What are we trying to create – Mum's Army?

Invincible, intrepid – and in the dark about the mummy-to-be in their ranks. Yes, this is today's Army, a force that is a bit of a farce. The plot is implausible in the extreme: a soldier doesn't know she is 34 weeks pregnant; her bosses don't know, either; doctors have to be flown in from Oxford to Afghanistan in order to offer medical treatment to mummy and baby. It would be laughable, if it weren't for the body bags we've seen so recently – in all, 430 British soldiers have lost their lives in Afghanistan since 2001.

The Camp Bastion baby will raise questions once again about Britain's role in Afghanistan, as well as about women soldiers. But worse of all, it raises questions about how our Armed Forces operate.

The pregnant soldier is the 200th since 2003 to have discovered they were pregnant at war. We knew the troops were ill-equipped: chaos in the supply chain meant that soldiers in Iraq went without life-saving body armour; hundreds of machine guns and grenade launchers arrived too late. At one point thousands of troops went without desert boots or clothing. The baby on the frontline proves that troops are not screened, either, for something as basic as pregnancy. If this casual approach continues, we'll have a Mum's Army, and that won't be a laughing matter.